Judy Glickman Lauder: Beyond the Shadows: The Holocaust and the Danish Exception

New York — November 24, 2018 … Ordinary people whose lives are transformed into unimaginable suffering and acts of incredible bravery—are the subject of Judy Glickman Lauder’s remarkable photographs.

Beyond the Shadows illustrates the mass murder of Jews during the Holocaust, while addressing the narrative of how the citizens and leadership of Denmark, under occupation and at tremendous personal risk, defied Germany’s Third Reich to transport the country’s Jews to safety in Sweden.

Over the past thirty years Glickman Lauder has captured the intensity of the death camps in Germany, Poland, and Czechoslovakia in dark and expressive photographs, telling of a world turned upside down. In contrast, the redemptive and uplifting story of the “Danish exception” is told through portraits of Danish Jewish survivors and Danish rescuers.

Over the course of a few intense weeks in 1943, the vast majority of Denmark’s Jewish population, seven thousand people, along with nearly seven hundred non-Jewish spouses, were hidden in boats and carried across the Øresund to safety in Sweden. Denmark is the only nation in Western Europe that can claim the rescue of its Jewish population from the Holocaust.

With texts by Holocaust scholars Michael Berenbaum and Judith S. Goldstein, recollections by Danish Jewish survivors, and a previously unpublished text by Elie Wiesel, written in response to this body of work, Beyond the Shadows demonstrates passionately what hate can lead to, and what can be done to stand in its path.

The Aperture Foundation will present a night of conversation between artist Judy Glickman Lauder and Aperture Executive Director Chris Boot at the Photographers’ Gallery in London on Wednesday, November 28 from 6:30 pm – 8:00 pm at The Photographers’ Gallery, 16–18 Ramillies Street, London.

Introduced by Brett Rogers, Director of the Photographers’ Gallery, Glickman Lauder will present a short talk about the work, followed by a conversation with Chris Boot, about the Holocaust, the Danish Rescue, Glickman Lauder’s personal journey, and their relevance to the world today. Beyond the Shadows will be on sale and available for signing after the event.

The book is a contemporary call to arms. As Glickman Lauder states in the book:

“Ultimately, this isn’t just about the Holocaust, nor about the Nazis, the Jews and the Danes. It is about us all: our capacity for hate and destruction, and our capacity to stand in their way and make a difference.”

Judy Glickman Lauder is a photographer, humanitarian, and philanthropist. Her books include Upon Reflection: Photographs by Judy Ellis Glickman (2012), as well as a book on the work of her father, For theLove of It: The Photography of Irving Bennett Ellis (2008). Her work is held in private collections and public institutions around the world, including the J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles; Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, Washington, DC; and Danish Jewish Museum, Copenhagen. Glickman Lauder’s work is the subject of two traveling exhibitions, Holocaust: The Presence of the Past and Resistance and Rescue: Denmark’s Response to the Holocaust, which have been shown at more than 150 institutions around the world.

ElieWiesel was one of the most influential voices for remembering and understanding the Holocaust. A Nobel Laureate, he was the author of more than fifty books, including Night, a work based on his experiences as a prisoner in Auschwitz and Buchenwald. He died in 2016, at the age of eighty-seven.

Michael Berenbaum is director of the Sigi Ziering Institute: Exploring the Ethical and Religious Implications of the Holocaust, American Jewish University, Los Angeles. He played a leading role in the creation of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, Washington, DC, and the content of its permanent exhibition. Berenbaum is also a rabbi, the author of numerous books, and executive editor of the twenty-two volume Encyclopaedia Judaica, 2nd edition (2006).

Judith S. Goldstein is an author, a historian, and a human rights leader. She holds a PhD in history from Columbia University. In 1997, she founded the international educational organization Humanity in Action.